All posts tagged Claire Danes

Warning: This post contains major spoilers from the Season Four finale of “Homeland.”

It’s always discombobulating when “Homeland” shifts from the spy world back to the real world – because even though Carrie Mathison’s (Claire Danes) tactics may be questionable, at least she’s in her element when she’s going after the bad guys.

But putting her in a soap-opera setting where she’s chasing down her long-absent mother (Victoria Clark) and finding out that the reason why mom took off 15 years ago is because she got pregnant by one of her many lovers and has now given her two abandoned adult daughters a 15-year-old half-brother? Not exactly Carrie’s area of expertise. Pursuing Taliban terrorist Haissam Haqqani (Numan Acar) is the equivalent of a summer vacation compared to this humdinger of a bombshell.

Now that Carrie is back on U.S. soil, her CIA duties have taken a back seat to her personal life for the Season Four finale, but thanks to the machinations of Dar Adal (F. Murray Abraham), there is going to be plenty to keep Carrie busy in the spy game come Season Five. Read More »

Warning: This post contains major spoilers from the most recent episode of “Homeland.”

There is no way “Homeland” was going to let us head into next week’s season finale without yet another a last-second plot twist, and this one sure was a doozy. After most of the Islamabad-based CIA and U.S. Embassy cleared out in the wake of severed diplomatic relations with Pakistan, Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes) stayed behind to track down the now-rogue agent Peter Quinn (Rupert Friend), who’s made it his mission to take out terrorist Haissam Haqqani (Numan Acar) once and for all.

As if Carrie wasn’t dealing with enough stress from her job, last night’s penultimate episode also took a moment to honor the late actor James Rebhorn, who played Carrie’s dad Frank, by writing in his character’s offscreen death. A sobering Skype call with her sister, however, brought in one a rare instance of joy for the embattled Carrie: A glimpse of what a big girl baby Frannie has become! And that telltale ginger hair! Read More »

Warning: This post contains major spoilers from the most recent episode of “Homeland.”

After making us wait a heart-pounding two weeks to find out if Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes) and Saul Berenson (Mandy Patinkin) improbably survived that fiery attack on their motorcade, “Homeland” set everyone’s nerves at ease within the episode’s first few seconds: They will live, with Carrie proving once and for all that she has both a superhuman constitution as well as superhuman skills. She emerges from an extraordinarily deadly explosion unscathed save for a solitary bruise on her head, and moments after skirting death, manages to take out a sniper despite her apparently sloppy shooting technique (more on this below).

Warning: This post contains major spoilers from the most recent episode of “Homeland.”

Well done, “Homeland”: Not only do we have to wait a nail-biting two weeks (the next episode will air on Sunday, 12/7) to find out if Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes) and newly released-from-his-Taliban-captivity Saul Berenson (Mandy Patinkin) have survived the fiery attack on their SUV, but you’ve also most likely usurped a spot in everyone’s Thanksgiving-table conversation this year.

Your cliffhanger to end all cliffhangers will have us entertaining the possibility of two frightening nightmares: Carrie joining Nicholas Brody (Damian Lewis) in that big lake house in the sky, as well as the concept of a Taliban-controlled U.S. Embassy in Islamabad. Read More »

Warning: This post contains major spoilers from the most recent episode of “Homeland.”

It wasn’t just Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes) coming down from her tampered-meds cocktail that brought some much-needed clarity to this week’s episode – there was also that hushed-tone exchange between two high-ranking ISI agents. As of now (and this could change at any moment, what with double-double-double-double agents running rampant around the “Homeland” universe), Pakistani Col. Aasar Khan (Raza Jaffrey) was not involved in the scheme to turn Carrie into a hallucinating raving lunatic.

It had been Tasleem Qureshi’s (Nimrat Kaur) hope that having Carrie fire imaginary gunshots with her fingers in the streets of Islamabad would be enough to relieve her of the chief of station post and put her on a plane back to the good ol’ U.S. of A. But Khan and his team – who were unaware of Qureshi’s brilliant but devious plot – put the kibosh on that, brought Carrie back to Khan’s home, and much to Qureshi’s (and, at this point, everyone else’s) dismay, allowed Carrie to stick around Pakistan long enough to permanently screw up Saul Berenson’s (Mandy Patinkin) life for the 567th time. Read More »

Warning: This post contains major spoilers from the most recent episode of “Homeland.”

Can you think of anything worse than watching your lover murdered by his own uncle, who just happens to be a Taliban leader holding your mentor hostage? Well, the ISI apparently could, because they came up with an inspired plan to send the already-fragile Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes) completely over the edge in this week’s nail-biting episode of “Homeland”: drugging the Islamabad CIA chief of station with powerful hallucinogens that triggered a chillingly lifelike vision of Nicholas Brody (Damian Lewis in a jaw-dropping special appearance). Thanks to the use of shaky camera angles – and the ISI’s American recruit Dennis Boyd (Mark Moses) surreptitiously switching her meds – “Redux” brought the audience right into Carrie’s terrified, troubled head as she rapidly deteriorated from rational thinker into babbling mess, crying in Brody’s arms. But in reality, “Brody” was Aasar Khan (Raza Jaffrey), an ISI agent part of an elaborate ruse to mess with Carrie’s mind, allowing the Pakistanis to capture her for their own benefit. Read More »

Warning: This post contains major spoilers from the most recent episode of “Homeland.”

We’ve reached the midway point of the season, which means episode six of “Homeland” was chock-full of melodrama, shocking deaths and a frightening cliffhanger. In a stunning turn of events (although, the sunbathing break by a stream was a glaring red flag that Aayan Ibrahim (Suraj Sharma) wasn’t going to survive the episode), Carrie Mathison’s (Claire Danes) lover/recruit ended up dead at the hands of his Taliban-leader uncle, Haissam Haqqani, who was tipped off to the fact that his nephew was (unknowingly) working for the CIA.

But Aayan’s unwitting martyrdom is quickly usurped by the revelation (to Carrie) that Haqqani and his crew of terrorists have taken Saul Berenson (Mandy Patinkin) hostage. It’s a good thing Carrie orchestrated this entire exchange – and was conveniently able to watch the showdown via drone from her cushy seat at the embassy command center – because now her mission is obviously going to be saving Saul from the clutches of the Taliban. The only wrinkle? Aayan’s murder triggered a quintessential Carrie meltdown, which in turn distracted the rest of her drone team from tailing the car carrying Saul. Read More »

Warning: This post contains major spoilers from the most recent episode of “Homeland.”

It wouldn’t be an episode of ”Homeland“ if Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes) wasn’t being exceptionally imprudent, and now her maddening behavior is starting to rub off on her colleagues, as well as exasperate them to no end. She spends the majority of the episode ensconced in her Islamabad safe house, continuing to seduce (because why use any other number of smarter recruitment tactics when taking off your clothes is always a sure thing?) the scared, unsuspecting medical student Aayan Ibrahim (Suraj Sharma).

This turns into the ultimate Charlie Foxtrot for Peter Quinn (Rupert Friend) and Fara Sharazi (Nazanin Boniadi), who are hot on the tail of a cleric connected to the now-alive Taliban terrorist (and Aayan’s uncle) Haissam Haqqani. But since Carrie would rather teach Aayan how to pleasure a woman instead of keep the lines of communication open between herself and her fellow agents, Quinn and Fara don’t get the resources (i.e. a drone) they need in order to keep the cleric from slipping out of their reach. Oh, and did we mention that the same car carrying the cleric has a kidnapped Saul Berenson (Mandy Patinkin) in the trunk? Read More »

Warning: This post contains major spoilers from the most recent episode of “Homeland.”

Now that we’re a quarter of the way into the season, “Homeland” has started ramping up the conspiracy and intrigue factors as Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes) moves forward in her seemingly one-woman battle for truth, justice and the American way. A tipoff from her U.S. Embassy colleague/frenemy, deputy station chief John Redmond (Michael O’Keefe) reveals Sandy Bachman’s (Corey Stoll) death was orchestrated by a local Islamabad hood named Farhad Ghazi, who was outsourced by the ISI. But this discovery is small potatoes compared to Fara Sharazi (Nazanin Boniadi) stumbling onto the fact that the Taliban terrorist Haissam Haqqani, thought to be killed in the drone strike from the season premiere, is very much alive and strolling around with his medical-student nephew/unwitting CIA recruit Aayan Ibrahim (Suraj Sharma).

So how much of the episode was true to form from an intelligence perspective, and how much of it was pure Hollywood? We checked in with the International Spy Museum’s historian and curator, Dr. Vince Houghton, for Speakeasy’s weekly series on what “Homeland” gets right, and where its accuracy falls short. Read More »

Warning: This post contains major spoilers from the most recent episode of “Homeland.”

Now installed as chief of station in Islamabad, Pakistan, Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes) had her hands full in the third episode of “Homeland.” Her recent promotion has done little to curb her reckless behavior, but at least she didn’t almost-drown her baby daughter in the bathtub this week. In “Shalwar Kameez,” Carrie juggled sexism and resentment in the workplace, establishing her own rogue team outside the U.S. Embassy – nice to see you again, CIA analyst Fara Sharazi (Iranian-born actress Nazanin Boniadi, promoted this season to series regular) – and recruiting a Pakistani medical student (“Life of Pi” star Suraj Sharma) to help her solve the mystery of her predecessor’s death. So how much of the episode was true to form from an intelligence perspective, and how much of it was pure Hollywood? We checked in with the International Spy Museum’s historian and curator, Dr. Vince Houghton, for Speakeasy’s weekly series on what “Homeland” gets right, and where its accuracy falls short.

Below is Dr. Vince Houghton’s take on episode three of “Homeland” (“Shalwar Kameez”), as told to Sarene Leeds. Read More »

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Speakeasy is a blog covering media, entertainment, celebrity and the arts. The publication is produced by Barbara Chai and Jonathan Welsh with contributions from the Wall Street Journal staff and others. Write to us at speakeasy@wsj.com or follow us on Twitter at @WSJSpeakeasy or individually @barbarachai.